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Argh, I give up. When did real, stupid statements surpass my ability to come up with completely stupid reasonings as to why they aren't stupid statements?

Sarah Palin

A name that is synonymous with death and ignorance.

I've noticed she's clammed up but good after the horribleness with Gabrielle Giffords. Only one or two blurbs in the media since then as far as I can tell. Although it might just all be going through channels I don't normally watch.

Argh, I give up. When did real, stupid statements surpass my ability to come up with completely stupid reasonings as to why they aren't stupid statements?

Sarah Palin

A name that is synonymous with death and ignorance.

I've noticed she's clammed up but good after the horribleness with Gabrielle Giffords. Only one or two blurbs in the media since then as far as I can tell. Although it might just all be going through channels I don't normally watch.

She actually didn't shut up then.

She shut up a bit after when it was discovered that Giffords was part of a national map she had a hand in producing, with very violent overtones to it. She at first tried to claim it wasn't real, then she tried to pretend it didn't exist by retconning the "target symbol" for Giffords out of the map. The internet being the internet, and her being fairly stupid, apparently she forgot that caches exist.

Shortly after reports surfaced that Rep. Gabrielle Giffords had been shot point-blank range during a meet and greet event in a Tuscon area Safeway parking lot, the managers of the website for Sarah Palin’s website SarahPAC took down some controversial imagery that included gun sight symbols over various congressional districts in political play, many on Twitter noticed that a site endorsed by Sarah Palin called Take Back the 20 was no longer live. The site included controversial imagery: gun sight symbols over various congressional districts in political play, one of the targets on the map was that of Rep. Giffords. At the time, SarahPAC received criticism, even from some conservatives, over the imagery. Update – Its not clear that the image was actually removed from the SarahPAC website, though the site that originally posted the image, Take Back The 20 is down, and it still remains on her Facebook page.

The image does, however, still appear on Palin’s Facebook page.

Palin has also reportedly deleted her infamous “Don’t retreat, reload” tweet. Update: The “Don’t retreat, reload” tweet was not deleted.

The website Daily Kos has also deleted a diary about Rep. Gabrielle Giffords entitled “”My Congresswoman Voted Against Pelosi, Now She’s Dead To Me,” but so far has not deleted a post by founder Markos Moulitsas that lists Giffords’ district among those on their “target list,” and noted that “Not all of these people will get or even deserve primaries, but this vote certainly puts a bulls eye on their district.” (emphasis ours).

Moulitsas also used the occasion of the tragedy to work in a Twitter plug for his book, “American Taliban.”

The tweet, it’s worth noting, was sent well before the shooter’s identity had been released.

For her part, Sarah Palin offered the following comment via her Facebook page:

"On the tragedy in Arizona
By Sarah Palin · about an hour ago

My sincere condolences are offered to the family of Rep. Gabrielle Giffords and the other victims of today’s tragic shooting in Arizona.

On behalf of Todd and my family, we all pray for the victims and their families, and for peace and justice.

- Sarah Palin"

While some will take these deletions as some sort of consciousness of guilt, there’s also something to be said for sensitivity to the victims, their loved-ones, and well-wishers. It seems, in some quarters, such sensitivity is in short supply.

Update: To the extent that these items have not been scrubbed, perhaps they now should be, or at least revised in some way.

This post has been updated to reflect that the “crosshair” image still appears on Sarah Palin’s Facebook page. We also have clarified that we are not certain that any images have been removed, only that the original website was down. The headline for this post has been changed, from “SarahPAC Website Removes “Hit List” Image That Included Target On Giffords District,” then to “SarahPAC’s Removes “Hit List” Image Of Giffords District, Her Facebook Page And DailyKos Post Remain,” to its current headline.

Notably, none of this stopped her from keeping the image up on her facebook page in its original intent. They just did some PR work so that only the "die hards" would see it, instead of the public.

How people can support that woman in good conscience is beyond me.

Also, it should be mentioned that that only shut her up for awhile. I recall hearing something about her touring the US on the dime of people who donated money, trying to drum up a fake "election prospects" thing. Which of course got her more money before she bailed and headed back to Alaska. I don't know the finer details of that however.

Not really. He would've passed it eventually if the Republicans had left it alone. There's no reason not to build it so long as it's not going through Ogallala. All the State Department wanted was enough time for TransCanada to find an alternate route.

It will use a ton of water from our aquifers, result in essentially no American jobs, and terminates in a tax-free zone so no one benefits but oil companies.

There is no reason to build it unless you are an oil company.

It's hugely disappointing that it's getting built at all.

I don't know, it's a bit of a stupid boondoggle but it's not like they would have paid any tax anyway. At least it makes the canadians happy I guess, and Id rather have the oil transported in pipes than in trucks.

Thing is when the shooting happened Palin didn't express any decency. Instead she doubled down on the stupid and posted the blood libel video. The map was dumb but hardly unprecedented. If her site had just pulled it with a statement of support for the victims everyone would've forgotten about it in a week

Thing is when the shooting happened Palin didn't express any decency. Instead she doubled down on the stupid and posted the blood libel video. The map was dumb but hardly unprecedented. If her site had just pulled it with a statement of support for the victims everyone would've forgotten about it in a week

That wasn't an option for Palin. That would be giving into the liberals, which is perceived as a weakness among Republicans.

I have a good friend that's pretty awesome all round. But he posts stuff like this. I'm not even angry or confused or surprised anymore. It just makes me want to donate more to Obama's campaign and e-mail these links to friends and be all, "Don't let them win. Look at this shit." And its only going to get crazier!!

As first reported on Distriction, Stephon, a student at Prince George Community College, was standing in line after an event on energy policy with President Obama and Maryland Gov. Martin O'Malley, waiting for a chance to shake hands with the president. As the president was shaking hands and making his way through the crowd, he met up with Stephon, who was born deaf.

Among the many serious problems with the Ryan budget, Republican budget proposal, is its dramatic cuts in some of the absolutely essential programs that we need to sustain and the investments that we need to make to secure America's economic future. Education, Pell grants is one; investments in clean energy is another.

I mean, again, it is -- you have to be aggressively and deliberately ignorant of the world economy not to know and understand that clean energy technologies are going to play a huge role in the 21st century. You have to have severely diminished capacity to understand what drives economic growth in industrialized countries in this century if you do not understand that education is the key that unlocks the door to prosperity.

As first reported on Distriction, Stephon, a student at Prince George Community College, was standing in line after an event on energy policy with President Obama and Maryland Gov. Martin O'Malley, waiting for a chance to shake hands with the president. As the president was shaking hands and making his way through the crowd, he met up with Stephon, who was born deaf.

"I am proud of you," Stephon signed to the president.

Not missing a beat, President Obama signed back: "Thank you."

to be fair, "Thank you" is one of the easier ones to know. But, knowing what the kid said...

Not really. He would've passed it eventually if the Republicans had left it alone. There's no reason not to build it so long as it's not going through Ogallala. All the State Department wanted was enough time for TransCanada to find an alternate route.

It will use a ton of water from our aquifers, result in essentially no American jobs, and terminates in a tax-free zone so no one benefits but oil companies.

There is no reason to build it unless you are an oil company.

It's hugely disappointing that it's getting built at all.

I don't know, it's a bit of a stupid boondoggle but it's not like they would have paid any tax anyway. At least it makes the canadians happy I guess, and Id rather have the oil transported in pipes than in trucks.

It doesn't make most of us happy, only Herr Harper, our dictator (who it is looking like rigged the last elections) who is selling the country off piece by piece as rapidly as he can because he is realising that there is no way in hell he's getting another term.

And before anyone posts that propaganda article claiming that the Carl Levin C-Span footage was doctored or edited you can see the original clip and compare it with the congressional record(Warning PDF) (the video picks up at the second paragraph in the middle column).

He articulates very clearly. There is no context that his words can be placed in to give them a different meaning. You can read the entire session for yourself and see the context.

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AManFromEarthLet's get to twerk!The King in the SwampRegistered Userregular

Err, there aren't many examples of the government deciding it can indefinitely detain american citizens at will (and most of the ones that do exist aren't really defensible.) There's Lincoln during the civil war, and that's pretty much the only one I can think of.

so next time you see recruiters in your school or your crib
tell'em thank you for the offer, but you'd rather you live

Err, there aren't many examples of the government deciding it can indefinitely detain american citizens at will (and most of the ones that do exist aren't really defensible.) There's Lincoln during the civil war, and that's pretty much the only one I can think of.

FDR in WW2 maybe? Though I think that was just for the duration of the war obviously.

This is a bigger problem with out War on Terror! mindset. Congress (and most Americans) are so ready to fork over powers and rights in the name of defending us from terrorists. Lindsay Graham made that speech about how "if you're a terrorist you're giving up your rights!".

If it were me I would redo our entire approach to Homeland Security.

But at the end of the day, I trust Obama with this power a helluva lot farther than I'd trust Santorum or Romney.

I don't think anyone's trying to defend this kind of thing, I don't want anyone having this power but short of "hang all the lawyers" I don't see how we get away from it. Literally every politician on the national stage would go for this.

What I'm wondering is what Obama could have done differently (even aside from the interpretation issues (the Young Turks can't read, imho), the NDAA as signed remains a horrible POS), in the opinion of the people STILL whining about this:

1. Veto the entire NDAA?
a. the veto would be overridden in days (2/3 majority was available and willing), or, just to twist the knife, a few months while congress took its well earned recession and THEN could come back and "save" all the military families who would have been "starving due to Obama's leftist agenda and hatred of the military" (see b.).
b. the NDAA is first and foremost the entire military budget. That means Obama would have VETOED VA benefits, soldier pay and needed armor for the troops. The horrible fact of the matter is that Congress allowed those essentials to be held hostage by this POS, but still.

2. Drone bomb all elected U.S. representatives apparently to dumb to live that allowed those provisions to be added to this bill and THEN veto the bill?
While I would applaud the sentiment, you'd probably hear EVEN WORSE cries of (benevolent) dictatorship.

3.???? profit?

Oi, "progressives" whinging about this:

Obama avoided it by biting through it. Congress (and especially dumbass (D) representatives) allowed an essential piece of run-of-the-mill legislation necessary for the proper operation of the country to be usurped by horrible, horrible attacks on civil liberties, CUZ TERROR. The person to be blamed for this is NOT the president (who merely took the lesser of two evils, in choosing an enacted NDAA over an enacted NDAA + a side order of republican president in 2012).

Please refute the above, and then we'll get into the interpretation, if you want.